I recently contributed a personal story to a book titled 101 Awesome Things To Do For Someone Who's Sick. Created by actor and award-winning author Elaine Wilkes, this thought-provoking book is filled...

This week, I had a drink with a very good friend. He's currently in a relationship with a wonderful woman whose ex-husband, the father of her children also happens to be the man who raped and brutally sodomized her for the last four years of their nine-year marriage. No one believed the story of her ordeal. No one in her family. Not one of her friends. Disbelief is a cruel after-effect of rape. It's also the trump card of the rapist. The burden is all too often placed on the victim, not the perpetrator. And when it's a spouse, he knows how to make the victim feel so worthless, guilty and low, that she'll avoid doing what is necessary.

I understand having Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson involved drives many people absolutely nuts. But here's an idea: The next time an unarmed 17-year-old black boy is shot with nothing more than a can of iced tea, a pack of Skittles, and a cell phone, make sure the system does its job from the beginning.